potentially legal status or temporary status. of visa overstay is one that has plagued the department for a number of years. it has plagued the country for decades. folks you keep track of who got here on a visa and came re illegally and then overstayed? it's not like disneyland where you can close the gates. host: time for one more call. republican line and we just about out of time so go ahead. of the first of all, seven or 8 million illegal aliens in our country that hold jobs, over half of them got those jobs i presentation to their employer of forged social security cards and then by lying on their employment forms that

said they were able to legally work in united states. very few of the people are being prosecuted for these felonies. would jeh johnson move to prosecute them? if you did that it would be a big to turn for more illegal aliens to come into the united states and take american jobs. now called just a civil infraction. it should be a crime. those are the two comments. secretary johnson has not that he willally direct u.s. customs and immigration to go after employees who are working. what they are doing is more employer verification, e-verify is out there for employers to determine if your legal authorization to work. i-9 in the audits of your

and it verifies we are a u.s. citizen, if your paperwork is not in order, the they are going after the employer more often. states including arizona have verify their own e- requirements to punish employers and target employers. the ideas is if you take away the magnet come you take away the draw. yes.n't have any stats it is relatively early so we are mexicot zero gain for border crossings. they are the lowest in the last four years but they are up last year -- they were up this year from last year. we try to figure out who is working. you target the employer or the -- the department has taken the approach to go after the

employer. we might see more employer verification. we have gone away from the days of raids. you can remember pottstown -- iowa, on meat packing plant with the rest of the number of workers. and they prosecuted the people who ran that facility. those days are a little over. we are not seeing the raids of employers prayed we see more of people verifying i-9's. host: quacks on the next washington journal, matt kibbe will talk about the privacy rights of americans. setter discusses

attorney general eric holder's call on states to repeal laws that prohibit felons from voting after their release from prison. the obama administration is considering using drone strikes against american citizens abroad with ties to al qaeda. we will be joined by christopher anders. as live everyrnal morning at 70 and eastern with your calls, tweets, and they spoke comments -- facebook comments. eventsring public affair from washington directly to you ofting you in the room congressional hearings, briefings, encumbrances, and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house. we are c-span, created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. watch as an hd and follow us on twitter.

next, the senate aging committee and small business committee look at the growing trend among older americans who start their own businesses. the joint hearing examined how to reduce barriers for senior citizen entrepreneurs and outline the various things that could help their businesses. this is a little over one hour. >> good morning. with the chairman's very kind permission, i am going to convene our hearing. we do expect to have a series of votes later this morning so we want to make sure we have ample time to hear the testimony from our great panel of witnesses. i am very pleased that the chairman has been able to put

together this joint hearing with the senate's small business committee. we have just been joined by the chairman of that committee, senator landrieu, who is chairman for a few more hours, i think, before she changes committees. senator cantwell becomes the chairman of the small business and entrepreneurship committee. i am also very pleased to welcome my colleague from south carolina who has been a terrific member of the senate's special committee on aging, senator scott. thank you for being here with us today. our chairman, senator bill nelson, will be joining us shortly. our nation's heritage as the land of opportunity owes much to the hard work, energy, and optimism of those who take the

risks to start up businesses of their own. through their success, they help to create a better life for themselves and to create jobs for others. the role played by america's small businesses in creating jobs and opportunity is well known, but the role played by america's seniors may come as a surprise. individuals between the age of 55 and 64 make up the largest percentage of new business owners in the united states. moreover, this has been true for decades, even at the height of the dot com boom. twice as many new businesses were founded by those over age 50 than by those under age 25.

most seniors don't want to spend their retirement just on leisure. many simply need to earn extra money to help make ends meet. seniors often have advantages that make them excellent entrepreneurs such as their life experience, real world education, and the networks they have established and maintained throughout their work careers. let me give just a few examples from my home state of maine to illustrate these points. bruce borman spent his career in the catalog business and as an advertising manager for a maine bank. as a hobby during his work years, he also created high quality, custom-made knives in his own small machine shop. after he retired, with the help of score, a terrific program run

by the sba that taps into the skills of retired business owners, he was able to turn his hobby into a full-time job and now sells his knives to customers around the world. dana from maine spent 28 years at international paper. when he retired, he and three colleagues started a small consulting firm to help other entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. dana said the great thing about running your own business in retirement is that you can work as much or as little as you want and still make a difference in the world. by choice, much of the work that he does is now pro bono. martha from maine lost her job when she was 64 years old. she picked herself up and got

back in the game by starting her own public relations business, calling on skills she had used earlier in her career. now she works out of her own home on her own schedule directing the marketing for "coffee news," the world's largest weekly restaurant publication. seniors like these have become successful entrepreneurs, not only through their hard work, but also with the assistance of experts at score and with the support of programs run by the sba. i was telling the sba's representatives today that other than being a united states senator, my favorite job was when i was regional administrator of the small business administration in new england and saw firsthand the difference the sba could make. i am particularly pleased that they are represented here today.

i am also absolutely delighted to see elizabeth isele at the witness table this morning. elizabeth is a knowledgeable and tireless advocate for senior entrepreneurship, and just as important, she hails from the great state of maine. chairman nelson and chairman landrieu, thank you for calling this important hearing. i appreciate the chairman's staff to tell me to proceed. i look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how sba and other assistance programs can be even better tailored to help seniors start up businesses and create good jobs for themselves and for others. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. you all may be surprised that senator collins and i actually run this committee together.

senator landrieu, madam chairman, and congratulations on being madam chairman of the energy committee. >> thank you very much. as the ranking member said, for the next few hours i am still maintaining my gavel as chair of the small business committee to get through this hearing. later this afternoon, i will take the gavel of energy and that is how important this hearing was to me and to our team at sba. senator nelson, thank you and senator collins for being willing to join us in this effort because i think it is such a promising subject to be explored and to be supported. i love the term "encore entrepreneur." i think it just says it all. it really is an exciting opportunity for our country with older people, older citizens still very healthy, very

experienced, wiser, calmer in their older years to be able to think and dream and build great businesses. i think our country, if i might say, our structure here in washington, in our states, and in our local communities really needs to recognize this wealth and treasure and structure ourselves to better help them. i will submit my statement to the record, but i want to underscore what senator collins said. the kauffman foundation which i found to be a reliable source of good information about entrepreneurship, not partisan at all, but very good facts says -- from 1996 to 2010, 26% of entrepreneurial activity in this country, which is the backbone of our economy, was produced by people ages 20 to 34.

what is not expected is that almost 40% were produced by people 55 to 64. this difference is expected to widen as more americans age over the next two decades. we have to be better positioned here in washington and our state capitals and in our cities to be good partners with these entrepreneurs. louisiana has approximately 960,000 residents over the age of 55 ready to go, ready to create jobs and opportunity. the sba just this year, senators nelson and collins, launched a strategic partnership with aarp. this partnership focused on providing counseling and training to entrepreneurs over 50 who wanted to start and grow a business. by october 2013, the collaboration had met and exceeded its goal of reaching 120,000 seniors.

through our core partnerships with score -- mr. yancey is here here representing them -- the womens business centers which all of us have supported, a series of other other partnerships with the private sector, i think this is so promising to not only provide an opportunity for our seniors, but really more importantly, for seniors to create wealth for themselves, their families, their communities, and for the united states. i will stay for a few minutes. i have to conduct another hearing this morning. i will submit the rest of my statement for the record. it has been a privilege to work with you all on this. senator nelson and i have introduced a bill empowering encore entrepreneur act. it is s. 1454. perhaps some of the testimony can enhance our efforts in that piece of legislation and we can join together with our republican colleagues and move something forward in the near future.

thank you, senator nelson. >> i will submit for the record a statement. first, we are going to hear from ms. montgomery. she serves as associate administrator of the office of entrepreneurial development in the u.s. small business administration. and then, from kenneth yancey, ceo of score. then, conchy bretos, she is the ceo of the miami senior living solutions in miami. then, elizabeth isele. we are delighted to hear from the cofounder of the senior entrepreneurship works and she is accompanied by dr. greg o'neill, the director of the

national academy of aging society. with that, we will start off with you, ms. montgomery. your written testimony is inserted as part of the record. if you will share with us about five minutes and we will go right down the line. we will open it up for questions. ms. montgomery. >> thank you. chairman nelson, chair landrieu, ranking member collins, and senator scott. thank you for the opportunity to testify on sba's work to serve america's encore entrepreneurs, new and aspiring small business owners over the age of 50. we commend you for highlighting this important topic and are grateful for your ongoing leadership and support. we all know the facts. small businesses employ half of the private sector workforce and create two out of every three net new private sector jobs. what many people don't realize

is that americans between the ages of 55 and 64 comprise the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the country. according to the kauffman foundation, encore entrepreneurs start new firms at a higher rate than any other age group. moreover, about 7.4 million self-employed workers are 50 and older. research shows that one in four americans between the ages of 44 and 70 are interested in starting a business or a nonprofit. that is why at sba we are committed to ensure that encore entrepreneurs have the tools they need to turn great ideas into successful companies. through our 68 district offices and nationwide network of resource partners which includes 11,000 volunteer score mentors, 900 small business development centers, and more than 100 women's business centers, we

counsel and train more than one million current and aspiring entrepreneurs annually. we have always assisted small business owners over the age of 50, but our new initiative with aarp enables us to more effectively target our services to encore entrepreneurs. in april 2012, sba and aarp entered into a strategic alliance to provide encore entrepreneurs with the tools and information they need to launch new companies. the objectives were threefold. first, to increase our outreach to this growing segment of prospective entrepreneurs. second, to connect these individuals with our programs and resource partners. third, to present entrepreneurship as a viable next step for older retiring americans. one that allows them to translate their ideas and vast professional experience into successful business ventures. between april 2012 and may 2013,

we held hundreds of in person workshops and mentoring sessions on topics ranging from writing a business plan and exploring franchise opportunities to accessing new markets and addressing the technology needs of encore entrepreneurs. we also offered online resources such as webinars and e-courses. also, a self-assessment tool for determining if an individual is ready to start a business. in order to increase awareness and connect more encore entrepreneurs with mentors, last april, sba and aarp established the first annual national encore entrepreneur mentor month. throughout the month, our district offices and resource partners teamed up with state aarp offices to host and promote more than 100 events around the country. events included speed mentoring, which allowed mentors and entrepreneurs to share

information for five minute sessions and mentor lunches for entrepreneurs to learn best practices from established business owners. as a result of this effort, aarp and our resource partners engaged almost 120,000 individuals. due to the initiative's ongoing popularity, we have seen a rise in the number of older americans taking advantage of sba programs. we know that these aspiring business owners are poised to join the ranks of other successful sba-supported encore entrepreneurs. folks like vicki frankovich who leveraged her 21 year career in banking and her husband's background in construction to form business solutions inc. in reno, nevada. vicki secured government contracts with several federal agencies, growing her company's revenues from $3 million to $15 million a year.

together with our resource partners and friends at aarp, we look forward to continuing this important segment of this population and helping more encore entrepreneurs grow and prosper. thank you again for the opportunity to testify and i am happy to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you, ms. montgomery. mr. yancey. >> thank you. chairman nelson, senator collins, chairman landrieu, senator scott. my name is ken yancey and i am the ceo of score. thank you for the opportunity to offer testimony regarding the advantages and challenges of senior entrepreneurship and our experience in serving this important and growing segment of our population. first, i would like to thank senator landrieu and senator rich for sponsoring and introducing senate bill 2008, score for small business act of 2014.

a reauthorization bill seeking to strengthen the resources for entrepreneurs by improving the score program. the additional funds provided by this bill will allow us to continue to improve the services offered by our volunteers, improve our efficiency, improve our outreach in both rural and underserved communities to include senior and encore entrepreneurs. score is a resource partner with the u.s. small business administration and we are celebrating our 50th year this year. today, score has over 320 chapters and more than 11,000 volunteers nationwide, most of whom are also seniors. many have been entrepreneurs and many are still actively employed or running their own business. they give back to their communities by volunteering in score and they have significant economic impact. in fiscal year 2013, those volunteers assisted clients in starting 38,600 new businesses, adding 67,300 new jobs, and growing the revenue in 40,100 enterprises.

score remains one of the most efficient and effective business formations in job creation engines presently in the sba's arsenal resources. i would like to reference a study by the metlife foundation. results of the study are consistent with the information we gathered from score preparation. the survey estimates 25 million areicans aged 44 to 70 interested in starting a business venture in the next 10 years. less than half of those are interested in social entrepreneurship and intent to benefit their community. these aspiring senior entrepreneurs often have significant networks and bring to the table an average of 31 years of work experience. many have an management experience and most have very realistic expectations for their

own small business experience. this is consistent with the information we gathered from our score mentors. 2013, 30% of our clients or between the ages of 44 and 55. an additional 31% were 55 and older. of these clients, roughly 29% were considering starting a business. 38% were in the process of starting their business. 29% -- 33% were already in business. they are important numbers. arson your clients often have the tools and experiences and needed to start a business but they may not have the ability to apply those resources in a small business setting. they don't have complex capital requirements and most don't aspire to a business size that will require venture or public equity financing.

many of them plan to self fund their self venture with personal savings and a small amount of outside capital. many have existing banking or vendor relationships and other personal relationships that aid in the business start up an management process. while a senior entrepreneur might have decades of experience, these skills and relationships often are not a direct translation to the world of small business ownership. score mentoring, coaching, guidance and assistance for byte support to these -- provide support in using their existing knowledge and resources. it helps him to focus on the right tasks, priorities, measurements and tools to be a successful small business owner. we appreciate the support of the two committees here today and your personal support of the issues around senior entrepreneurship and score. we believe that senior in encore entrepreneurship will be an

important segment. these individuals have significant knowledge, experience, and often resources the use and support of their own business initiatives. on benefit from education issues related to starting and running a small business. score clients 55 and older make up our largest client age demographic today. we know you recognize what an important contributor to senior entrepreneur segment is to our economy and you will help us continue to meet this growing need. i will be pleased to answer any questions and provide you with any documentation. thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. yancey. ms. bretos. >> i am so happy to be here. thank you so much, chairman nelson, chairman landrieu, and the rest of the members of this committee. i am delighted to share my thoughts on what it takes to be a late in life entrepreneur.

9 million,urrently this is the only statistic i will give. and 31 million coming through in the next decade. i am the owner of miami senior living solutions, an innovative firm for the first time provided assistance living services for public housing residents. . senator nelson, you may not remember, but you visited helen sawyer in 1998. since then, our firm has worked with public and private entities in 23 states. spring, we we opening the first public housing assistant living facility right here in d.c. our projects have proven to reduce medicaid and medicare

spending by keeping seniors away from costly institutions, generating thousands of jobs, and healthy profit margins. for the past two years, we have partnered with low income tax credit developers and owners of affordable housing and investors to grow our model. this is required a major undertaking. created miami senior living solutions as a nonprofit knowing that in order to grow our firm, we had to be propelled by profit. i developed very good understanding of an aging issue, a good network, and a facility to be able to bring funding to miami when it was required. i live long enough to learn some

failures and how to deal with downsrns and the ups and that entrepreneurs go through. changing the way we care about are seniors seniors and disabled adults in this country is not a new idea but no one had come up with a good model. ageying my own business at 50 was as much a part of changing life circumstances as it was a career change, and empty nest and the end of a marriage. the loss of a job. i reached midlife with an urgency to leave a legacy, to contribute, to make money, to be able to live the bonus here is that longevity it's as. as we age, we have this desire to impact the world and grow stronger. dreamed oftime, i

creating something lasting that would connect me with other generations, including my children. i did not want to do for that dream anymore. what kept me up that night was the fact i did not have health insurance. ended, i came to miami with an idea and a few thousand dollars. publicd to convert a housing building into assisted living. i went to the director. and then i want to the state legislature and got $1.2 million. i'm very good at raising money for other people, but not for myself, unfortunately. [laughter] 1.2 million dollars from the state legislature. i believe you are there, senator nelson. senator nelson. thatarted with a promise

it would be self-sufficient at the end of the year. we generated $1 million in profit at the end of the year. becoming a fellow in 2010 has helped me tremendously. they have given recognition to what i did and he given a lot of people that have helped us in that's -- investor debts, budgets, how to raise money. i have learned more about electronic records and blogging and facebook than i ever want to do. always hitching up with my kids. i wanted to recognize score and sta.

they have contributed a lot of knowledge and money to my initiative. most fellow interpreters are not as lucky as i have been and they need capital and they do need connections and they do need someone to open doors for them. discrimination israel and is a real -- discrimination is and is a major factor. we do not have any models that encompass old people. we think of an innovator as someone young who develops an idea in their garage. the real entrepreneurs today look like me. we need some help. accessing government for me has been a major issue. it is very difficult to bring a new idea to government. they need us. they need people like us who are committed, who have the public

interest in mind. i am driven, discipline, and terribly disruptive. [laughter] i think those are the qualities that got me here today. i thank you very much. >> thank you. honor --an [inaudible] thank you. i understand what you mean about the technology. [laughter] i am a senior entrepreneur myself and i am very grateful to be here today and to share and explore the opportunity that we all have as a country, as a nation, as communities, as individuals to really open and ofand the untapped resources senior entrepreneurs in creating their own economic self reliance as well as boosting that of the communities and the countries. -- country's. i want to it knowledge my

colleague, dr. greg o'neill, who is here. i am extraordinarily passionate on the subject. dr. o'neill has the data to back that up. thank you for being here to do that. i had just returned from the state of florida where we program a brand-new this weekend to an extraordinarily receptive audience. delighted that senator collins is here because i started my first enterprise as a senior entrepreneur in the state of maine. i don't know of any state as early on and in continuing to support entrepreneurial activity and was extraordinarily welcoming to a senior such as myself who was starting a program for seniors in the state to connect them to technology, to help them understand how to use it. the program grew from 12 seniors

to 28,000 seniors across the country within five years. it was supported and -- i did not start that enterprise with as of monday. -- money. we wanted to help them understand how they could tap into resources that exist. in maine, we have an extraordinary amount of resources that supported us. be it adult education, community centers. when i first had the idea of what connectivity of seniors would be to technology, i went to people that worked with seniors and said, is this a good idea? they said they didn't know but they put up a poster in the senior centers. create a poster and say it is free. the poster literally said, do computers have you flummoxed? web inspireld wide visions of giant spiders? come and find out what it is about. those 12 seniors came on saturday mornings and started to

learn about technology. as they learned and as the we developlt, alliances with microsoft, microsoft gave a huge grant to maine for seniors and technology which they are still continuing to deliver through the library system there, but way also partnered with the national institutes of health. were putting all of their health care information online and said, our greatest concern is seniors who need this information cannot access it because they do not know how to use the technology. we created a program for the national institutes of health -- and teaches health them to access and evaluate the information online. the faces of seniors -- conchy is a senior and i am pleased she

has come through the storms to be here today, but there are incredible seniors out there and tremendously untapped resources. i would like to cite joe james who is in north carolina. his concern was he wanted to help all the black rural farmers who were leaving their farms because they could not continue to leave on the farm. what he did is create a farmers market where they could sell their produce very you realize that the end of the day they had all this produce joe james is a bioengineer. he learned how to take that excess produce, no matter how small it was, and converted it into biofuel. his next idea was if we can convert it into biofuel -- why can't we have people create ideas for this? the farmers are creating from the seeds and literally the need to start their small businesses

or need -- maintain their farm was a capitalization for seed to start this. they now create products for these biofuel converters and it turned into a huge agricultural business. it is also a social program. it is an extraordinary program. you have seen a lot of statistics this morning but we like to say that seniors are creating businesses and they are creating models. entrepreneur whirring is definitely trumping aging. i won't go into the many stories that we have, but we have 34 million self identified seniors .ho want to start businesses that does not even touch the millions of seniors who are intimidated by the word entrepreneur. they don't conceive of themselves as entrepreneurs. which we started with

a college, it has an online curriculum for those self-identified seniors. it is a free online course work specifically designed for seniors and senior needs. i am a senior innovation fellow in massachusetts and i was talking with the director there and said, what about the millions of seniors who are intimidated by this word entrepreneur? way to tap into their entrepreneurial spirit. we created a program called e-prov studio. it is a combination of entrepreneur old thought and action, but we categorize it through the art of improvisation. it works extraordinarily well because the two keywords in and.visation are yes,

you put it in a community with senior entrepreneurs and seniors thinking about exploring it, and and" helps them leverage the resources they have at hand and in the workshop in terms of working together to come up with an idea. that is so powerful as opposed to most rogue ramps -- most programs are either or. yes, and and it is extraordinarily effective. launched the first video with 40 people over the weekend. 30 but thecap it at demand was extraordinarily -- extraordinary. we have invitations from 12 india, allaustralia, over the du, to create this

program as well as 40 cities in the united states. senior entrepreneurs have a tiger by the tail. most importantly, to your point of the numbers of seniors wanted to start as this is, people want to explore it. they want to explore starting a business of their own, how do i decode my entrepreneurial history? that is one of the things we do at the studio. we have people who -- one of our exercises is decade by decade, starting from 0-10, 60-70-80, no matter how old they are, we asked them to identify and a compliment that they are very proud of that they achieved each decade. what we're trying to do is to get them understand that they have literally been thinking entrepreneur layup -- entrepreneurially all of their life. whether they are working in an

office, they are internal or external entrepreneurs. we had one woman who came up with the story at age seven -- and my overtime? >> hold some of those thoughts for later. >> sorry. i suddenly realize i am in the negative. >> i will insert in the record senator landry's statement and a letter from aarp that is supportive of the hearing. i will defer my questions. senator collins? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i know that senator scott has to leave and i wonder if i could allow him -- >> senator scott. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. your words and comments, i was thrilled, frankly. it is a great panel. i'm going to walk away with a couple of bonus words for the bonus years.

thank you very much for your comments. -- my questions having to do with being a small business owner for 15 years, and the trepidation in agony being a business owner, i think of the seniors that have had a lifetime which allows us to understand why so many small business owners that are seniors actually sick need -- to succeed that a much higher level than younger people. the access to financial capital is where want to focus. i had a difficult time finding capital to start business. as i started to succeed, i really is the regulatory burdens and the red tape, the tax code don't lend themselves to succeeding and sustaining success. i would really like to hear the

comments from you two yourpreneurs as related to thoughts on improving the tax code if you have any in order to keep more capital so you can reinvest her own money in your business as opposed to looking for ways to find capital, which if you go to a venturer or an angel, you are talking about a high price to continue business. if you have thoughts on ways that you would ask us to contemplate the discussion on tax reform to benefit seniors, tax credits, if you have any in mind, where the red tape that you have to go through from the local to the state to the federal levels. the combination of which i would imagine can be a stranglehold at times. >> i used to have black here when i started this. [laughter] >> i had an afro. [laughter] >> when i ventured into the low income tax credit in order to build -- we have to build

facilities to provide services. irs has problem is the the program, the capital. with andncies i work the reason for my wife here -- u.s. hud has the capital also. waivers.he medicaid a don't talk to each other. they work in silence. no national capital program in the united states. each agency has their own little program. just an example that probably you can help us solve. when you work with tax credit, they have regulation that actually work against getting a assisted living facility.

there are a multitude of regulations that each agency have that interfere with each other. they say you cannot for service onto someone living in assisted living. the license says if you do not provide the services, we take the license away. this is the constant conflict that occurs all the time. it is because there is no coordination at the federal level with the different funding sources. >> the inter-agency coordination. before coming at the one step concept. would you like to add anything? >> thank you. am routinely interested in unemployment benefits. seniors who are unemployed over of being% chance reemployed. the challenge is they need money

to start a business but they don't need a lot of money. in many cases, seniors can start a small, art is anil dash -- on their own.ness you have to report for 18 months that you are looking for a job. if there's a way to take that money as you get for your unemployment benefit and put it into entrepreneur andrew ship -- education and explore, the government can modulate the problem and explore. we're giving you the money, but not give me the money to sit at home and dream up the idea of the next business. we're giving you the money so you can get training so you can understand if you can do this and then start the business. that is just one. the interdepartmental works but they are very small initiatives. this is helping senior

entrepreneurs is not going to take millions of dollars. >> they are unfortunately pulling a michael tail because i am out of time. -- pulling on my tail because i am out of time. next time maybe we can talk about micro-lending. thank you. >> senator collins? >> thank you, mr. chairman. ironically i am going to start off just where senator scott left off. it seems to me that it may well be harder for seniors to get the financing that they need. i see a lot of nodding heads on the panel. even though it may be a small i love the idea of , the long-term

unemployed, to use their unemployment benefits is a to dart a a well smell -- start a small business. i want to go across the panel and talk about the financing issue. i can see where some lenders would be reluctant to invest in a seniors' new biggest -- senior's new is this -- business. whether they are going to run out of time or energy or decide that they want more leisure time , perhaps because of stereotypes , because of not knowing they are more likely to succeed in a business operated by a far younger citizen. about, first of all,

is it harder for seniors to get financing and second, what can we do about that? oftentimes, it is a very little amount of money that is necessary but that may be hard for seniors to take it out of savings that are there for retirement purposes. do we have micro-loan programs that are targeted at seniors the way we do for veterans or other groups? i will start with ms. montgomery. let's just go down the panel. >> thank you. ba, we s e a -- s understand that entrepreneurs have a challenge to getting capital. we are committed to opening doors to access additional capital to them to start their businesses. of loana number

products designed to encourage lenders to provide access to funds to underrepresented if and under --epresented and communities. a small loan advantage program and additionally our micro-loan programs that are used by non-depository lenders such as community development, financial institutions. a -- go as can go is low as $500 and up to $350,000. what we do through our resource partners through the sba is to help entrepreneurs identify and know where the resources exist. a lot of time people don't know about micro-lending rogue rams

-- programs. they have the relationship of these institutions and can guide and direct our entrepreneurs on the right path. -- yancey?ey eckel thank you for referencing the knife maker in maine, one of our terrific clients. he started his business with a small amount of capital. it was not bank funded. 10% of our clients get bank financing for their businesses. we did not lend into the startup environment when i was a banker. it was too risky. that comentrepreneurs to see us, many are self funded through savings, not to retirement.

i personally don't believe it is the right thing to do to reach a dupe 401k's and there are vehicles that will allow you to but as a defined senior now, i am not going to reach into that and i think that is the prudent thing to do and we would not encourage others. micro-loant opportunities for those seniors make a great deal of sense. i think express opportunities that some of the loans the sba have offered in the past and still offers like patriot express -- i think there is value of something along those lines. i like the idea was speaking with someone who is more mature, who has a little gray or maybe no air -- hair. [laughter] has the experience and has made payroll or balance sheet responsibility or has been

gainfully employed over time that knows how to operate in a business environment. those are the types of risk that i think all bankers would look for at the time. i think there are things that you can do. i think there are things that would be valuable. i think it is critical that we thecontinue to promote importance of senior entrepreneurship and evaluate value it can bring to communities and the economy. >> thank you. i know my time has expired. theok at the responses from other three on the next round. thank you. ms. bretos? i try to do that as well as the chairman. i don't think i succeeded. >> thank you. from the onset, my experience with the sba and score in particular has been wonderful. they have really committed to helping small businesses. i like the idea very much of micro-lending. through two and a

half years of trying to get a loan from celtic bank in miami. disaster. i don't know whether it was backed by the sba. i assume so but i basically had to give my house as a collateral in order to get $100,000. there are major problems and i something like the mortgage guarantee loans. our problem is the revenues. we don't have sufficiently to back alone, they have to take your house instead. that is a problem. hugelyoloans are effective in this arena because in order to mitigate seniors' financial risk, we encourage them to start small. with global working

programs. kiva is a local -- micro-loan program. we encourage people and if government could open access to information about places like kickstarter. -- aimed at womenof or younger entrepreneurs. there is really no language that aims at seniors. an best example is 88-year-old grandmother who started a company called happy canes. $3000 fund it with a from kickstarter. this is an example of the intergenerational opportunities everett her grandson saw she decorated her own cane. he asked if he could make her more. she said yes, i have lots of time. how about selling them?

she said she had to get the supplies. starterch date kick sheaign and in three days had $3000 for this. she markets it on etsy. you have these ways to get a micro-loan through online businesses and social media. it is fabulous for seniors and seniors with disabilities. we must not roll them out. a huge percentage of them are self-employed or have small businesses. >> thank you. thank you for the opportunity to join this passionate panel. on this point, it is true that older adults who don't self-fund bootstrap there'v

startups say the key point is access to capital. thanks don't completely understand the need for this, of this population. one of the things elizabeth and i have done is bring together cross sector groups to better understand the phenomenon of senior entrepreneurship. i think going forward, the microloans and crowd funding need to be made accessible for older adults. the great thing about micro-institutions is that they are able to provide advice as well as loans. that has been a key thing. we have seen in countries like the u.k., they actually have micro-loan organizations who specifically target the long-term unemployed. the long-term unemployed really have a -- especially when they

are older -- have a disproportionate chance of staying unemployed for a very long time. this is a segment that really deserves our focus and policy attention. >> thank you and thank you mr. chairman. >> senator casey? -- thank youuch very much. it is an interesting topic and it is one that bears a lot of review and scrutiny by members of the united states senate and the house as well. it is interesting because when i look at a state like the one i represent, pennsylvania -- we have about 2 million seniors in our state. when i consider what they have done in their lives up to that point and time, it is really extraordinary. the,kind of at the end of the younger end of the baby boom generation.

when i consider the generation just before the baby boomers, folks who are in their 80's now are close to that, they have lived and not just through a remarkable time. , but they have contributed so takeantially to what we for granted today. we take for granted that they have a middle class. they built it. especially after world war ii. you consider the contribution they made to several wars and defending the country and preserving freedom, all of that. we sometimes take that for granted today. just the ability they demonstrated to adapt to change. what i hear from our witnesses today and constituents back home is that when they reach a certain point in their lives, if they have been entrepreneurs or have been doing

work or activities that have an entrepreneurial's ear it -- entrepreneurial spirit, they run up against a couple of basic challenges. theof them is just challenge that comes with financial insecurity. i'm not sure there has ever been a time and i security -- in our history where there been more reasons to feel that insecurity. the economyty of has never been more apparent than in the last couple of years, certainly in the last decade. reason for other this sense of insecurity is washington. they don't see washington working together on a regular basis. it has been a little better lately, but we have a two-year budget and a one-year appropriations. ort provides some lessening diminishing of that security. when people don't see this place

working, they scratch their head and say, what does that mean for my bottom line? there have been plenty of reasons to be worried in addition to the speed of technological change. i guess i see this issue as both a security, financial security issue, as well as a basic dignity issue. our self worth is tied up in what we do and how we do it. the idea that you spend most of your life being an entrepreneur, creating jobs and wealth or being successful, the idea that when you had a certain age you have to shut the engine off does not make sense. for all those reasons and more, it is important that we explore this. i will leave a little bit of time for questions. i think i will do it senator collins did. dr. o'neill, i will start with leftnd go from my right to and ask you -- because around

here, if you make 10 recommendations, we probably won't get to 10 in terms of enactment in new legislation or pushing the administration to do something or insisting an agency do something. i will limit everyone to one because we don't have a lot of time. if there was one thing, starting with you, dr., that you would hope the house and the senate would do in the next year to to bringtter policy or about a better -- more opportunities, i should say, for encore entrepreneurial opportunities, what would you recommend? if you had to boil it down to one legislation or policy? >> thank you. since we say encore entrepreneurs specifically, i will take it specific in that sense. we are really talking about the

people who go into self-employment after 50. there are about 1/3 of the people who are in self employment after 50 came in after 50. the others have been self throughout their career. they are very different and they need our help because they are the ones disproportionately likely to have been unemployed been more pushed into entrepreneurship or self-employment than the groups who were there before. i come back to the idea of unemployment benefits because i think that has shown in other places to make a big difference to him getting that group back into the labor force, back into creating tax revenue, back into contributions for social security, medicare, and the most important thing is that when people are self-employed and doing the work of their passion, we have seen that they work much longer. they retire on average much

later than what -- than salaried individuals. we encourage longer work lives which helps our fiscal outlook. >> thank you. i don't'm over time and want to test the forbearance of the chairman. [laughter] >> i think my number one priority would be to change government's attitude toward seniors. we need, in this country, it is happening across the globe, to think of seniors as assets and not liabilities. there was always talk about seniors -- don't worry, we are not taking this away. we are not diminishing this entitlement program. it is always been that negative. i think we have to turn that into a positive. was quoted in "the new york times" over the weekend, we have to start thinking about this not in gloom and doom tombs -- terms as the

oncoming silver tsunami. we have to see them as a silver lining in this country. what they can contribute. they're not a silver tsunami, they are a silver lining and they will be yielding golden dividends. >> thank you. ms. bretos? >> i will say that most of my colleagues, and there are quite a few of them, what they have problems with is accessing government. especially for the purpose that you mentioned. requires changing policy. not necessarily introducing new legislation, which i know is very difficult. i was a lobbyist once and i understand the process. something called the white office of social innovation and civic participation that has been in effect for about four or five years.

they do not have a phone. they don't answer e-mails. i have been trying to talk to them for the last four years. but something like that that set, identify staff that would actually connect us with the federal government, federal agencies. i don't have a problem with senator nelson. never had. [laughter] to seeime i want to come him, he makes time for me. but it is difficult to access government and we depend on it. someone who would coordinate the efforts of all interpreters to -- entrepreneurs to have a lot of juice. >> thank you. mr. yancey? >> sorry to limit to one recommendation. >> we would hope that we would continue -- have continued access to quality training,

mentoring, and support for these entrepreneurs who have many great qualities, great knowledge, and need a bit of assistance in applying that on a small business environment. the support and have access through sba, score, business centers, and other programs are important to the success of that group. >> thank you. ms. montgomery? >> i would add code mr. yancey and say to continue to support of the small business administration so we can do this work. we have always been serving. our resource partners have always been serving this do moreon and to through your support would be most beneficial. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> ms. bretos, what was the government office that you said did not answer the phone? >> that is the beauty. nobody knows about it. -- andalled the office

the mandate, it was created under the mandate to identify capital and financial capital to bring about community solutions. it is the office of -- i'm sorry. i had it here. is not associated with the white house. the white office of social innovation and civic art is a patient. the director is a mr. greenblatt. >> well, we will see if he answers my calls. >> i'm sure he will. thank you. >> since you started the although, you had had quite a bit of experience in business before your senior years -- what do you wish you would have known before taking

on the task of organizing the business? >> i think if i had known, i would not have done it. it was better if i didn't. naïve and hadvery allusions. i think for me to understand that it was not going to be easy, that there were going to be a lot of people who would think that i am, i am a goner and i don't have a secession , who will take over, the lack of capital. there are a lot about benson downs. what is good from -- ups and downs. that i good for me is have learned to fail very often. i have failed at almost everything i have done a my lai.

enough i had started this before i had learned how to fail, that would have been an accident for me. but i would do it again. >> you obviously have done it successfully because you have seniors present miami living solutions. >> that is about it. , it has brought me here in front of you which is a success. o'neill, interestingly we have a new health care law. citizens, all their life they work for a company. they retire. maybe their company does not provide for health insurance. maybe it does. but, if they suddenly find just before the.

, does thee at age 65 fact that health insurance is available now through the health insurance exchanges help at all in making the decision and that senior's mind to start a new business? >> this is a very, very interesting question. we actually have quite a bit of research around this question. what you are offering two is a phenomenon that is sometimes described as job block. i call it job anchor, where your health insurance is tied to your workplace. you may or may not want to leave pursue an path- because there are lots of risk and to add on top of that the risk of not being covered if a health condition arises is going to be a big one.

we also know, and many of us have cited the statistics, that it is exactly in that 55-64-year-old age group where we have the high entrepreneurial level activity anyways. this is a group that is probably very likely -- more likely to have a pre-existing condition, too. let's be clear about that. what other studies have looked at, both surveys of what stops people from pursuing entrepreneurial paths, and people cite and surveys the lack of option to get health care. we have seen in natural experiments were some forms of health care have rolled out that are outside of the workplace that the rate of entrepreneurship has gone up. a recent survey by the brookings institution thinks the aca mag -- may actually unleashed over one one million self-employed

people into the market. putting that aside, we have studies that looked at the difference between going into entrepreneurship at 65 versus 64. a simple switch to medicare and it is about 13% higher. >> really? >> there was a muddies -- meta-study of labor policy people. it seems to indicate that this should have some sort of a boost. i can't comment on the overall net effects of the aca. it is a very compulsion -- very important component. >> who study was that that said a million new jobs would be created? >> that is the brookings institution. we can make it available to you. studieshe -- the other seems they are the source of some of the most interesting --

that is a foundation that really supports entrepreneurship in america. they have a lot of interesting work that we can all learn from. does the acagree giving certain tax credits for businesses 25 employees and under play into this? on that question, i will turn to some of my panel. i am less a layer with small business and the tax credit. >> that is more of a tax question and that would apply to nah. about theme more benefits, the economic benefits of senior entrepreneurs. seems that really there are several economic and social benefits. individuals staying in the workforce longer, which as i

mentioned earlier, this is a well-established fact that the self-employed retire later. they indicate they will retire later and they do. that is a tremendous benefit to society. if people do work longer and they are doing things they enjoy, we benefit from the tax revenue, the continued contributions to our social problems -- programs. we have concerns that we will have labor shortages in some areas. it is a good thing that we have people continuing to work and it allows these individuals to increase their standards of living in retirement and particularly in people who were unemployed for long periods is getting back into the workforce. that more than half of business owners in the united states are age 50 and older.

small businesses a net producer of jobs and the economy. to the extent that we are supporting this, this has additional major effects in terms of business and job creation and all the spillover effects from that. >> if i could -- with your permission -- i think at least one major piece is that the older you get, the more involved you get and social issues. the older intrapreneurs like myself are definitely concerned with solving social problems health,elessness, like children. i am sure, has a spillover effect. someone solving the social problems. 4 in our -- >> in our program, we start with 60% and now it is close to 70%

of seniors with which we work that start a green business. that will have a huge environmental impact. >> there is a common perception that more seniors working will take away youth employment. studies show it is exactly the opposite. it creates more youth jobs. comment on that. >> that is absolutely true. one of the individuals in your state of florida was a senior who started the company and the company grew so much faster than he anticipated that he had to hire his children to help scale the organization. theorks both ways with seniors and intergenerational business start ups, but the seniors that create jobs are creating jobs for young people. we say prosperity knows no age boundary. it is true. with the jobs they create, everyone benefits.